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how with so many legs he was able to walk. When the centipede began to think about it he was not able to walk. The act of walking is simple without thought, but think about it and it become impossibly complex. To master is to simplify. The sword master must act on no-mind spontaneity. Takuan tells his student that his actions must be like sparks flying off flint struck by metal. There can be no delay, no hesitation. Attack and response must be in the same moment, such that no space and no time divide one thing from another. Zen sword master Tesshu calls this the “sword of no sword.” in which, as he says, “I naturally blended with my opponent and moved in unhindered freedom.”36 Aikido is founded on this same philosophy. In fact, it is literally the art of the sword without the use of a sword. There is a story told about Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, being unarmed, defending himself from a sword attack by a high-ranking swordsman, by avoiding the cuts and thrusts until the swordsman gave up.

In The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke is confronted with a task that he perceives as difficult, he declares, “Alright, I’ll give it a try.” To which Yoda responds, “No! Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” So long as there is effort, that very effort divides the mind against itself. When “I” try, the mind is divided between “I” and trying. With effort there is division between the actor and what’s acted upon. This division is a psychological fabrication that fragments the whole into parts, thus removing one from original mind. In Zen enlightenment, known in Japanese as “satori,” there is the experience of undivided wholeness. Satori is what Zen is all about.

Tesshu was one of the greatest sword masters. After his early training, he went for many years undefeated. Then he met Yoshiaki whom he was not able to defeat. Although Yoshiaki was older and much smaller, he repeatedly forced Tesshu to retreat. Tesshu began to suffer from the image of this master as a great mountain bearing down upon him. This was for him like Luke’s vision of Darth Vader inside the cave on Dagobah. And just as the real obstacle for Luke was his own mind (as revealed in the severed head of Vader exploding into the likeness of Luke’s face), so it was for Tesshu. Thus he went to a Zen master for help. “If an opponent frightens you or confuses you,” advised Zen Master Ganno, “it means you lack true insight.” Ganno gave Tesshu a koan for his zazen (Zen mediation practice). A koan is problem to work on with zazen that cannot be solved on the level of thought. Some classic koans are: “Show me your original face before your parents were born,” and “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” To answer a koan, one must demonstrate insight which comes out of satori. After years of Zen training Tesshu entered into a satori, after which the threatening image of Yoshiaki vanished. When next he encountered Yoshiaki and they crossed swords, Yoshiaki withdrew his sword and declared, “You have arrived.” There was no further need to fight for there was “no-enemy.” When Luke says to Yoda, before he knows it is Yoda, that he is looking for a “great warrior,” Yoda asserts that “Wars not make one great.” In like manner Tesshu only became truly great warrior when he realized that in truth there is “no-enemy.”37

As a novice monk studying with Taizan Maezumi Roshi (a Japanese Zen master), I worked on a koan attributed to Bodhidarma: “If you use your mind to study reality, you will understand neither reality nor the mind. If you study reality without using your mind, you will understand both.” Axiomatic to Zen philosophy is the insight that conceptual understanding is illusory. A core assumption of Western thought is that one can use intellect to understand mind and reality. Zen asserts that this is not the case. True understanding is beyond all conceptualization. The mind is endlessly active in effort to achieve that which is impossible for it. Zen is a philosophy to undo philosophy, to study mind and reality with no-mind. There is no end to asking why and no way to give an